I'm not surprised!

People will marry for a lot of financial benefits. I know one lady (and I use that term loosely) that married a man that owned his home, was married for a very short time, she filed for divorce and the Judge gave her the home. No kids were involved.

Another one that we knew both parties did the same thing. She had told people she was going to marry someone and take them for a ride. She did, he ended up having to pay alimony. Again no kids involved. I have trouble understanding this. How can a woman live with herself after doing this and how can a Judge justify it?

I dont know anyone who has married to get insurance, but I do know two couples who have been separated for years, but stay married, so that the wife can stay on the husbands insurance.

Me too Kathline!

One of my very best friend's (she is actually my maid of honor) parents are NOT together but still legally married. The dad lives in California and has for 10+ years; he actually lives with his GF of about 7 years. Mom still lives here in Missouri in the house that her husband still owns with her.

Mom is an alcoholic and also has had lots of psychiatric issues--suicide attempts, she is diagnosed bipolar, etc. She's doing well now, but her med. history is so bad that almost no one would insure her. So she and her husband have stayed married for that reason---so that she can remain on his health insurance.

When I was 10 or 11, we had a family at our church with two kids. Dad and mom divorced and it later came out that the dad was gay. A few years later, he was diagnosed with HIV. This was a good 17 years ago, and the treatments were obviously not as good as today, so he declined very quickly. He was only really sick a few months before he died. In the hospital, he and his ex-wife were REMARRIED by a justice of the peace--and it was all for insurance/life insurance/money benefits for her and their two girls, which I honestly don't think was a bad thing.

I think people do marry a lot for practical reasons.

I am not surprised either... especially considering before DH and I were married health insurance was a major concern given that we both had kids and having two family plans and trying to survive was out of the question.

I don't know anyone who has married for health insurance, but I do know a couple who divorced to keep health insurance. This was a few years ago, and they were on COBRA and the divorce was to have a qualifying event so the wife could keep her coverage for an additional 18 months.

The wife had a serious health problem and it was necessary. They later remarried.

More on slightly related, from Todays Wall Street Journal, Geneal Motors has offered a temporary amnesty (for past insurance amounts), but will then be demanding proof of relationships for dependents with coverage. They apparently are expecting to find 5-10% of dependents are not spouses or covered children.

kk-you've said yourself, if i remember correctly, that you would likely not remarry even if you were to be in a committed relationship, due in large part to the complications of combining financial lives of people who are older/established/parents/etc. People constantly take into consideration the financial implications of marrying or not. Insurance is just another financial consideration, so no in my mind it's no more surprising than, say, retired people who don't get married because it might affect their retirement benefits or some such.

In fact, I wonder if that might be part of the reason my mom's never married her SO (retirement income, not health insurance). I know she was married to my dad long enough that she will be able to qualify for SS benefits based on his earnings which are significantly higher than hers, I don't know if that option goes away if she remarries.

I see nothing wrong with marrying for a lot of different reasons as long as both parties agree to it. If one person marries for a benefit but the other assumes otherwise, then it is dishonest. But other than that i do not care why people marry or divorce.

I think many people get married because of health insurance.

In my case I was engaged to my dh and we had been planning a large wedding which was still 8 months away. I had gotton a job offer for a new bank but I would lose my health insurance that I currently had and it would be 90 days before I got my new health insurance.

So my dh and I decided that I should accept the job, because it was better and paid better than my current job. Plus it was a promotion from what I was currently doing. We went to the court house and got married without telling anyone. This way me and my dd could get on his insurance.

But like I said we were already planning a wedding and had been putting deposits on the hall, flowers, etc. So we did not get married for insurance. We just pushed up our wedding. And then we still did the big wedding without telling our relatives we were already married.

I don't know anyone who has done that, but there is no way I would stay married just for insurance. As long as you are married you are responsible for each other's bills. If one has to go to a care home the other's income and savings go right into the pot. No way.

Quirk,

I wasnt expressing an opinion, I was just a little surprised at the magnitude of the number.

oh, I know, I wasn't trying to be argumentative, just explaining why I don't find it surprising.

What is scary about this is that so many people on large employer health plans think they can put someone on the plan who is not an "eligible" dependent and they believe won't get caught and that the person is truly "covered".

If the ineligible dependent has a small claim or several small claims, their presence on the plan may fall under the radar.

But should they get really sick or catastrophically injured, that is when they get caught. Large employers and unions often "self insure" their plans and many will purchase reinsurance to cover individual and aggregate large losses.

If the employer, for example, self insures the claim up to $100,000 but the claim goes higher than that, it goes to the reinsurer. The very first thing the reinsurer does is determine whether the person is "eligible" to be on the plan.

If the reinsurer finds they are not eligible, they will not pay. That's a huge problem if the claim reaches $500,000. Who pays the remaining $400,000? And the employer is within their rights to try to collect the $100,000 they paid out.

GM is being more generous than many employers would be by offering amnesty for past amounts they have paid. I'm all for everyone having health insurance, but there are reasons why there are rules in health insurance.

I believe that large employers who buy reinsurance would rather take a poke in the eye and a punch in the belly than to have a claim denied by their reinsurer. It is often a problem without a solution.